Embarassingly NOOB question about feeding....

[piscivorous]

Ok....so my tank is still cycling so I haven't even begun researching every individual think I want to have in it yet....but does one basically have to cater to every individual's needs in the tank, or is there one "magical" item you can purchase that will feed most anything you decide to have in your tank? It seems like a ton of work otherwise to consider each individual fish's dietary requirements, on top of whatever you might need to suppliment your anemones, corals, clams with....

[lordofthereef]

As far as fish are concerned, you will deal with carnivores, herbivores, and omnivores. Depending on the fish you want to keep you may have a mix of these. It is fairly easy to make a mix that will suite all of your fishes needs. In the case of herbivrous fish (in the hobby that generally means tangs) you will want to supplement with dried seaweed (aka nori) which can actually be found in sheets at your local grocer (the stuff we wrap sushi in). Of course, there are additives that you can add, which I personally will not go into because I honestly feel that has to do with personal preference. There are various coral foods that you can also try, and even incorporate into your fish food mix/slurry. My favorite coral food is reef chili, namely for its ease of use, but there are various other foods available on the market.

I am curious, mostly because you have over 400 posts and have been a member for around 5 years, what were you keeping before starting this tank?

[piscivorous]

ha ha....400 posts and 5 years. I was just taking everyone's advice when they said to be patient and take my time :) Actually, I first got a fish tank wanting to keep tropical fish...then I made the mistake of going to a nice reef shop and seeing the possibilities...that was all it took and I was determined to set up a reef tank instead. What I did not know was how much initial start-up costs were to do it right. I was on a limited budget so I just started to slowly put my equipment together. About two years ago I bought a bunch of live rock and "cooked" it since I wasn't ready to add it to my tank yet. Then I got distracted by life and let it sit for about another year. So my live rock was now "dead" more or less and I FINALLY got around to finishing up a few more important projects on the tank setups and got the rock and water in the tank. Just bought a couple of chunks of live rock to seed everything and now I am finally going through the cycle process. So I have about 5 years and 400 posts of learning what livestock goes with what, and what I can put into a 55 gallon tank. 5 years and 400 posts on best equipment to use for what I want. Of course if I had it to do all over again, I would spend more money on a 120 tank. If I had the room and the money, I would do a 180. For now I will continue with my 55 and see how it all goes.

[travis32]

LOL, wow. 5 years ago I ran a 29 gallon SW tank and MADE every mistake that one can make with a SW tank. Like you I thought it'd be cheap to convert a freshwater to SW. HA! Was I wrong... ;)

I cycled LR with Fish in the tank. The time and money would have been better spent reading during that time instead of doing everything wrong. ;)

[IridescentLily]

Nori --for Tangs- it's dried seaweed (they'll need to eat other stuff too)-you can get Nori dried at Asian markets.
Rod's food-- for lps/sps/softies and non-photo synthetic corals (check it out at www.marinedepot.com).
Marine snow-- lps and sps corals and softies
Reef chile-- sps, lps, non photosynthesis corals and softies corals (marine depot)
Mysis shrimp--everything eats this; fish, lps corals.
Phytoplankton--All corals, including non- photosynthetic corals (can get at DT's or marine depot.com)
Pieces of (finely) chopped up squid/clam--LPS corals

You'll need a turkey baster and a (small) plastic or glass container.
You feed the mysis, marine snow, rods food with the turkey basted, just a little bit at first to see if they grab it with their lps tentacles. Don't leave it there to rot if they don't eat it the first few times.
Rods helps with colors of the coral too it seems. As well as nutrition.

The glass jar or plastic container is for feeding your corals without the fish getting the food.
So you take the confaner or glass, put it (carefully) over the coral, lift one side of the container and shoot the Baster with rods food into glass. Now keep the glass on the coral it until you can see some food get on the coral.
Now take off the glass.
Viola!